Desire

by Louise Bagshawe

  A quick look at the departure schedules. There were flights to lots of places, some safe, some not. Finland - Milan, even. God, how she longed to board a flight to Milan. But she dared not do it. They would discover Josh soon, and some time after that, find out Janet’s passport was missing. They’d put out a stop on it at the airport. How long before they checked all the guest passports, not just her own? This would be a celebrity case, lots of pressure. If she took a long-haul flight, her little ruse would be found out before she landed. Police would be there to arrest her before she got off the plane. They would turn her around; she’d probably never even get through immigration to claim asylum.

  Breaking for freedom too early would be a death sentence.

  A short-haul flight was the only answer. She had to be off the plane before they found out about the passport.

  But the closer destinations offered little comfort. Singapore. Mainland China. Hong Kong . . . every one of them could extradite her back to this hellhole. All these Asian countries had the death penalty, didn’t they? The lot of them! But she had to make a choice anyway.

  Before she could be extradited, she’d have to be caught.

  And a little chance was way better than none at all.

  Dragon Airlines was flying regularly to Hong Kong. Lisa had an old friend from school who lived in Hong Kong, or used to. They hadn’t stayed in touch. But that was more than she had anyplace else in south-east Asia. Maybe she could repeat the trick, borrow Alice’s passport. Steal it if she had to. Alice had shorter hair, and she was dumpier, and a brunette. But she was at least the same age, and British. Maybe she could figure something out.

  A slim chance. But a hell of a lot better than nothing. Lisa had no idea if Alice was at the same address, or still lived in Hong Kong at all, but she had to try. She walked up to the ticket counter and got in line, trying not to let her stress show as the couple in front of her asked about upgrades and vegetarian meals. She nibbled a little on the doughnut. It gave her sugar, and something to do. Each second took an age to pass.

  ‘Can I help you, miss?’ the agent said.

  Lisa tried for her most brilliant smile, the one that had landed Joshua Steen.

  ‘I’m thinking about going to Hong Kong for the weekend. Wondered if you had anything on standby.’ She forced a chuckle. ‘Coach of course.’

  ‘Let me see.’ The woman did not respond to her humour, but that was OK. She was brisk and looking right through Lisa. ‘There’s an open seat on the next flight if you hurry. Luggage?’

  Lisa shook her head. ‘Kind of an impulse thing.’

  ‘OK. Then you should make it. How you like to pay?’

  ‘I have cash,’ Lisa said. ‘US dollars OK? I only want one way. I might go see a girlfriend in Sydney after that.’

  The agent nodded, uninterested. ‘Standby one hundred eighty dollars.’

  Lisa counted the money out. She had hundreds; the agent did not care. She passed back the change in Thai baht and gave Lisa a boarding card.

  ‘Gate 122, boarding now. You hurry.’

  She sure would hurry. Lisa rushed upstairs to the metal detectors and passport control. She was fortunate; it wasn’t too busy. When she came to the passport desk, panic almost overwhelmed her, but the surly man sitting there barely checked her photograph; she was waved through and nobody cared that she was running to the gate. When she got there, passengers were filing into the plane. Lisa offered her boarding card; it was placed in a machine, the stub given to her. She had a middle seat, way in the back, and she was grateful for it.

  She buckled herself in and sipped slowly at her coffee, nibbling on the doughnut to settle her stomach. Each moment the plane sat on the Tarmac was torture. Each minute was torture. The whole flight would be an eternity of terror.

  Finally, the plane moved from the gate, taxiing out on the runway. Thirsty, sick, her heart thumping and her head pounding, Lisa watched with utter relief as the wheels lifted from the Tarmac and the plane moved into the sky. It was nine forty-five. She’d asked the hotel to back off until noon; would the maids knock then, or wait a few hours? Would Josh’s sister, or his mother, interrupt them early? Her heart crunched in pain as she thought about that. God, but she had hated those women, so petty towards her, so cold to Josh, greedy for his money . . . but they were his family. Miriam had given birth to him. She tried to imagine their horror, the wail of grief that would rip through them when they saw him, found him, poor Josh, the master of the universe a cold, helpless, blood-soaked corpse on that bed. The moment would scar them both, as it had scarred her, for life. Whatever quarrels or fights . . . how small those things seemed now, how very little they mattered. Horrible waves of guilt and pity and fear raced through her. She dug her nails into her palms, distracting herself with the pain, trying not to be sick, to push the image away, concentrate on her survival. Once those poor women found him dead, how quickly would they assume she had done it?

  Everything depended on the passports. The estate guards would call the police. Rumours would sweep the hotel, the wedding guests. The selected, hand-picked journalists Josh had chosen to attend - tame poodles permitted to report on the big society wedding - would suddenly find themselves, celebrity hacks though they were, in the middle of the story of the year. What the Thai police did not think to do, the paparazzi would suggest to them.

  Lisa didn’t know how long she had. This flight was three hours and forty minutes. She would also have to get through Hong Kong immigration. None of what happened now was in her control.

  The ‘fasten seat-belt’ sign was switched off. An air hostess was coming round with a trolley full of drinks. Some louts, British holidaymakers, were already asking for alcohol. Lisa would join them. She never wanted to drink, not ever again in her life. But the hangover was brutal, and she needed to be whole, to cope with the forward journey, the escape. She knew enough about drinking to understand that hair of the dog was real. A little alcohol now would attack her liver, her poor, bruised liver, but while it dealt with the fresh assault, the toxins besetting her would lie low; the symptoms would be masked; like a miracle from Lourdes, she’d feel better. And Lisa needed to feel better.

  The trolley arrived, and she asked for a white wine, although she blushed as she did it. It was passed to her without comment. She poured the liquid into a little plastic glass and swallowed, feeling her sanity return with every slug, not able to care about the internal damage it was doing. She was sorry she had killed Joshua. Sorry she had seen him with Melissa. Sorry she’d been dazzled by him in the first place, sorry she’d gotten drunk at her own wedding. But she dared not cry or make any sort of scene; the hole in her heart would have to do for penance this morning.

  Lisa Costello was sorry for a lot of things. But she did not want to die.

  The wine flowed down her gullet and into her body. For the next few hours, life was out of her control. She put her head back against the synthetic leather seat, and started to pray. What else could she do? She didn’t want to get caught. She didn’t want to die. Right now, nothing else mattered.

  Chapter Two

  Sam Murray wondered just how far he could go.

  The party had lived up to expectations. It should do, he guessed, for the reported two-million-dollar price tag. He thought it had cost more than that. The cocaine alone must have run Josh Steen a hundred grand. And Beluga caviar another fifteen. His back-of-an-envelope calculations suggested three to three and a half.

  This kind of bash was manna to USA Weekly. His was the new trash celebrity mag on the block, and they prided themselves on being first with the exclusives and the glossiest pictures. His editor walked the fine line between the exclusive, scurrilous stories of the National Enquirer and the Eurotrash puff pieces of Hello! and OK!. They hinted darkly at marital rifts, they ran blind items, they suggested and prompted and sniggered, but they covered it all with the first pics and the official photo shoots. And they paid very well. Half a million for this party, which would cover the coke
and the caviar.

  He had great copy for them, too. A stand-up fight between the gilded lovebirds at the actual reception party of their wedding. Gossip sweeping this glittering crowd that the new-minted bridegroom had indulged in his first affair less than one hour after tying the knot - and with an ex-fiancée, too! The sister-in-law openly insulting the bride! All that wealth - and no happiness.

  He’d seen Kevin’s pictures, and they were gorgeous, if you liked that sort of thing. Sam’s editor did. Lisa Costello, looking good enough to eat in her Vera Wang gown with the real South Sea pearl tiara, and a ten-carat flawless diamond glittering on her hand. She was a naturally pretty girl, but the artifice of some of Hollywood’s best make-up magicians turned her into a stunner. Then there was the wedding itself, on the beach, by the Buddhist temple; the extravagant fireworks, the private jets, the hired estates, Atomic Mass, the giant rock band, performing a private concert, drugs and champagne, an imported casino and every kind of wild excess.

  His own guest bungalow might be the most luxurious place he’d ever stayed in. Its quaint woven bamboo roof belied the comforts within: jacuzzi big enough to swim in, goose-feather bed, cool marble floors, a private kitchen stocked with Beluga, Krug, Evian, lychees and other fruits; a cinema-sized big-screen TV, ultra-fast wireless, and in the back yard, screened by a lanai against the local mosquitos, his personal eternity pool, complete with fountain and swimming current.

  The assignment was over, but Sam Murray did not want to leave. To do what? To fly back to his one-bedroom apartment in the Hollywood Hills, the only thing he had to show for a lifetime’s work? To get back to his computer, trail a few more shallow celebrities, discover who’d had plastic surgery this week, which box office hero was banging the nanny? It was no life for a man. But it was his life. It paid the bills, and he went along with it.

  While guys like Josh Steen, tanned and well groomed in their designer suits, over fifty and overpaid, ran the businesses that made his copy. They had the money to throw the parties where he was just another guest, just another leech.

  They walked away with girls like Lisa Costello.

  Josh Steen hadn’t cared about Hollywood’s judgement, not at first, and that was because he was a judge of quality. Big enough to have taste. So Lisa Costello wasn’t Hollywood attractive, not obviously blonde, petite-nosed and manicured up to her eyeballs. But she had something about her. It didn’t come over on the TV cameras or in photographs. She was real, she was un-plastic; grounded, independent, feisty, pretty. The girl next door - but with ferocious guts, and a mind of her own. The kind of woman a man could partner with.

  Lisa Costello was still standing. After two years of tabloid abuse and pillory. Some of which Sam had thrown at her. No drug problems, no alcoholism. Not even a retail addiction. She just got on with life, no excuses and no crutches. Sam admired the girl. She was gutsy.

  It was a tragedy, really. She could make him happy, if he’d let her. But somehow Steen had slipped into conventional thinking, got Lisa all groomed and taken in hand, booked the big wedding, flattened her spirit. It wasn’t Lisa whose nerve had failed. It was Josh.

  Sam knew it. One thing that made him what he was, made him so good at this shitty job. He could read people. If he got close, he could read characters, strip them down further than their therapist or their rabbi. He’d met Lisa now, knew already how wrong her image was. What a strong girl she was. He hated that he’d never have the chance to go any deeper with her, see what made her tick.

  Sam checked himself. He was thinking about her way too often. One chance encounter, one short conversation, and Sam Murray, divorcé, man about town, breaker of hearts, relentless womaniser - Sam Murray was transfixed. He understood immediately why Josh Steen had made that choice. His own past copy on Lisa Costello was instantly revealed to him to be so much junk. This was no gold-digging bimbo playing out of her league. Lisa Costello was something very special.

  And Josh Steen, not Sam, was marrying her.

  But maybe not - after that little display at the reception last night.

  The thought cheered him. Surely he was watching the newlyweds break up. Surely she couldn’t have gone to the honeymoon suite after that - not to make love to him, anyway. Josh Steen, apparently, could not buy her. Lisa Costello was willing to throw it all away. Half his readers would think she was the dumbest broad in the world.

  Sam was unreasonably glad to be proved wrong about her.

  Anyway, the fight gave him a wonderful excuse to stay on. Josh Steen’s hospitality would end at first light tomorrow, and there was no way the magazine would stump up for these ultra-exclusive digs, but perhaps he could get a room at a nearby hotel. He’d taken care to generously tip every cleaner, guard and waiter he met, too, with his editor’s money; there were now half a dozen people who would let him back on to this estate, even if he was no longer an official guest.

  Kevin would want to stay too. He was going through a divorce. At least the guy had somebody to lose. But Sam didn’t want to do this with Kevin, he wanted to do it solo.

  Sam was a loner. When he was young that was OK, but he was getting on now, thirty-seven and no serious relationships. His marriage had lasted longer than the Steens’ was going to, but not by much - an impulse thing in Vegas with a fun-loving girfriend who immediately metamorphosised into a nagging wife. She’d cut and run after two weeks, and he would have called it off if she hadn’t.

  No woman had lasted more than six months with him.

  Sam moved to the living room to make the call - landlines were a necessity; his cell phone was patchy out here at best - and felt the familiar pang of self-disgust. Every time he went cap in hand to them for anything, he loathed himself. What was he doing, writing pieces on puffed-up nonentities who nobody would remember in fifteen years, maybe not in five?

  Collecting your fat pay cheque, Sam told himself sternly, the one you need for the girls and the casinos and the property taxes and the stupid toys and the fast car. It was amazing how much cash he could blow in a month and have nothing to show for it afterwards.

  He knew he was better than this.

  His editor did too, and that was why he bound Sam’s hands so tight with the golden cuffs. Sam got good pay, but he also got just enough excitement to keep him happy - assignments like this in exotic locations, tickets to the best premieres, a slot at Vanity Fair’s Oscar party. Because he offered something none of the other overpaid celebrity hacks could.

  He could get close.

  Closer than anyone.

  Sam was a man of talent, even brilliance, but no discipline. He’d applied to the FBI and graduated their training with honours. Unfortunately, that same training had revealed to him how easy the corrupt had it in this world, and what a lot of danger for shitty pay he’d be getting in the FBI. So he quit.

  There followed a few unhappy years. It wasn’t as easy as he thought to make it happen. He was rejected for investment banks and lost money in property. The jobs on offer seemed worse than the FBI, which at the very least promised excitement. He drifted, and he started to like himself less and less. The Bureau wasn’t interested in having him back, and he doubted he could take the discipline of the army. So he became a private investigator, renting a small office in Beverly Hills and offering to tail anybody if paid enough cash.

  At this he was an instant success. He could prove he’d been in the FBI, and errant husbands or trophy wives looking for a younger guy on the side were easy enough prey. Word spread. After that, US Weekly came calling. They wanted to know if a certain film star was cheating on his terminally ill wife.

  He was, and the sarcastic, witty report that Sam wrote about it got him hired.

  Within two years, Sam told his asshole landlord that he could stuff his rent cheque. He bought the smart little place in the Hollywood Hills. He was finally steadily employed, and doing well at his job. It was how he’d ended up in Phuket, watching how the other half live and sharing a cigarette last night with Lisa Costello, t
his month’s Girl America Loves to Hate.

  Lisa Costello. If she was really going to jack it all in, walk away from luxury and a hundred million dollars, then Sam could leave his mid-six-figure salary. I’ll do it, he promised himself. Just as soon as I get home. Just as soon as I can figure out what else I want to do with my life. And who will hire me to do it . . .

  He shook his head; he was already making excuses. Damn, snap out of it.

  He picked up the phone and dialled.

  ‘Rich Frank’s office.’

  ‘Sarah, it’s Sam, can you put me through?’

  ‘Hey.’ His boss, a sluggish two hundred and eighty pounds, sounded unusually excited. ‘Sam? You still there? You on this thing?’

  He must have heard about the possible divorce already. Sam cursed; he liked to be first with the news, it was why he got the big bucks.

  ‘The fight? I’m an eyewitness.’ Yeah, think about that angle.

  ‘Fuck the fight. The death.’

  Sam tensed as a surge of adrenaline pulsed through him. He drew back the white chiffon curtains of his bungalow and looked up the manicured lawns and tropical gardens towards the main hotel. There were flashing lights there, the unmistakable blue and red of cop cars.

  ‘The murder,’ Rich was saying. ‘He’s fucking dead and she’s fucking gone. She killed him! The stupid bitch killed the guy!’

  No need to ask who. His heart started to thump. Lisa Costello had killed Josh Steen? She was a hundred and thirty pounds, tops. Steen was nearly two hundred, and he worked out. Sam did not believe it.

  ‘I’m on it. I watched them fighting . . .’

  ‘Lots of the networks had that already. CNN and Fox are already scrambling their jets. But you’re the only journalist on site right now, this second. This is going to be the new O.J. Simpson case, Sam, for fuck’s sake, and you’re there first.’